v2.2.0 Multi-Face GPS-Clock

A few new screens:

• NextEvents() - New screen showing Next Equinox/Solstice, Easter, Lunar/Solar Eclipses in sorted order, i.e. sorted after date as shown to the right
• SolarEclipse() - New screen showing solar eclipses for this year and coming years (table-based until 2030)
• Equinoxes() - New screen for time of equinoxes and solstices

Demo mode now has a choice of increase, decrease, or random next screen number (selectable in Secondary menu).

More languages selectable: {"en", "es", "fr", "de", "no", "se", "dk", "is"} Any language with max 4 special letters in alphabet can be implemented.

Better accuracy:

• More accurate prediction of sun rise/set times
• More accurate formula for Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter magnitudes in clock_z_planets.h, now follows Meeus [thanks Richard]

Now runs on Adafruit Metro Express (M0). This makes it much faster for the Hebrew calendar in particular.

And some more minor fixes, see details on Github.

Groups.io discussions for the Multi-face GPS Clock

Front panel design by W4OA. 3D print design files on github.

The new discussion group is https://groups.io/g/Multi-Face-GPS-Clock/messages.

Please sign up!

The latest version of the code is on GitHub.

Mysterious Logbook of the World DXCC Behavior

I just applied for additional credits for my DXCC status with Logbook of the World (LOTW). However some countries that I applied for, and which were awarded, are still in the "pending" category and don't seem to count.

 

It's a mystery for me that LOTW has approved of a QSO with for instance Equatorial Guinea, but it is still in the "Pending" category. 

The only reason I can see is that I happened not to select the very first QSO with Equatorial Guinea, but the second one. And then it does not seem to count.

I wonder if I somehow can select the one approved to be the one which counts towards DXCC, thus moving it from "Pending" to "Awarded"? Any clues from a reader of this blog?

Svalbard, JW1ITS, in International WSPR Beacon Project

1000 spots over the last 2-3 days of reception.
Image from WSPR Rocks.

This month a new receiver station in the International WSPR Beacon Project was established near Longyearbyen, Svalbard. It is located at the Kjell Henriksen Observatory, at 520 m above sea level. This is a nice location for reception, but it is a tough place for outdoor antennas.

The receiver is an Airspy HF+ Discovery and software is running on a Raspberry Pi 4 and it is intended to run continuously 24/7. The receiver receives WSPR which was conceived by Nobel laureate Joe Taylor, K1JT. WSPR is run in a Coordinated band hopping schedule from 3.5 - 28 MHz, i.e. each frequency is received every 20 minutes.

Better accuracy for the Multi Face GPS Clock

Version 2.1.0 of the clock now implements interrupt-driven setting of the second. It needs the Pulse-per-second PPS output from a GPS for that. The result is that the clock is more accurate as it now changes seconds a few hundred milliseconds earlier and aligns perfectly with other clocks I have.

It is optional whether one wants to use this feature or not. If not, the PPS flag needs to be set to 0 in the Setup menu, otherwise the clock will wait indefinitely for a pulse that never comes. In the image to the right the PPS flag is set to "1".

My new HamClock

I finally got the hardware for the HamClock and installed the free software. It really looks like a labor of love on the part of its creator, Elwood Downey, WBØOEW.

I show the ISS footprint, for the occasional APRS signal from/to it, and DX cluster reports from zones near where I live.

10 bargraphs and progressbars for the LCD of the Arduino

I needed some progressbars and collected all the bars I could find and implemented them on an Arduino with 20x4 or 16x2 LCD. 

There is a total of 10 different bars and here are the two which are used in the upcoming version of the Multi face GPS Clock.

The main design principle is that no more than 8 custom characters should be required per bar. That means that the custom character set is uploaded just once for each bar, giving much less probability for wearing out the LCD character memory with its presumed finite limit on the number of write cycles. 

Multi Face GPS Clock ver 2.0 setup

Clock nerds may appreciate that my multi-face GPS Clock software has come in a major new software version, V2.0.0. The main novelty is that it allows a typical user to setup the clock without having to edit the Arduino software. Youtube video demonstrations are below.

First, the 24 screens of the Favorites subset (make sure to turn on subtitles):